The last thing golf needs is more excitement. Right? If you’ve been watching the Masters this week at Augusta National Golf Club, you know what we’re talking about. Between the internet cats hiding in Rae’s Creek…:
And the sand alligators:
And the beautiful hole 12 in Amen Corner, aptly named “Venus Fly Trap”:
…we think the Masters has a lot going on. It’s deadly entertainment at its best.
For those of you who are not familiar with the Masters and Augusta, or not allowed to be familiar with it because you forgot to bring your Y chromosome (yeah, you can now, but do you want to?), it’s 7500 yards of the great green outdoors that’s only accessible to really rich people, so go back to your forest preserve golf course in Illinois and stop whining. Each hole is named after a type of fauna, or possibly a fungus, such as the legendary hole 2 — “Peach Dogwood,” or hole 8 — “Giant Corpse Flower,” or hole 18 — “Vulva” (though no one can ever find the hole location on that one — hint: it’s not at the back end).
What makes the Masters so exciting for the PGA is the fact that people actually watch it on television. And not just on the weekend, but at the office during work hours. We’d say, “Shhh, don’t tell anyone!” but your boss is watching it, too. Right now. Seriously, go into his office (if it’s her office, than never mind).
So, what makes the Masters so great, besides the fact that we here at MojoFiction watch it (which makes most things great)?
Live streaming.
Live streaming and golf were made for each other. Fact. Because MojoFiction said so.
And we think they could have a future together.
Yesterday we watched the “Featured Group” of Bubba Watson, Justin Rose, Selena Gomez, and a rookie named Gunn Yang who looked like he wanted to crawl under the Ben Hogan Bridge and never come out (he scored a quintuple bogey on the practice green). And before you laugh, Selena Gomez can PLAY. …Probably. We actually inserted her onto our screen using Photoshop and it’s like she was there. Awesome.
We followed all the action of these select golfers as they went through the course. We really got a good feel for their game throughout their round, how they were driving, their short game, how the course was playing, how really boring the announcers still are. It was far more entertaining than the usual weekend broadcast that bounces back and forth between different players and different holes. Half the time you don’t care about the particular player they are highlighting, or you get the line, “This moments ago on 15.” There’s no flow.
Golf is truly an individual sport. Viewers are generally interested in particular golfers and not whole field. On the Thursday and Friday sessions of the Masters, you can follow selected golfers and it’s a more rewarding experience.
If the PGA could work with their broadcast partners on this type of streaming option for other tournaments, where you can follow specific golfers for the length of the event, or at least until the Sunday finale, we think golf could reinvigorate their sport as a televised event. Surely, there’s a way to monetize it so everyone can get on board.
Of course, Augusta’s streams are free. We’re not saying they should be free, but we’re cheap and so…
MojoFiction 
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